


The trees look back

by fish_wifey



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), M/M, Minor Sexual Content, Strange things, fiction mingling with reality, university student Goshiki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 18:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17751431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fish_wifey/pseuds/fish_wifey
Summary: When Tsutomu looks out of his window, it's as if something looks back at him. Not a trick of the streetlamps or the shadows of the trees, either.He really misses one of his senpai, too.





	The trees look back

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my ode to the strange. Based on what I used to see when I looked out of the window in my old home. 
> 
> When I moved into this room during my studies, it was slightly after the Slender hype. It was quite disconcerting for a while. Sometimes I would look out at the windows, and the street lamp/two trees outside the house I lived in would sometimes. Idk. Stop me in my tracks?? Anyway one such time I had this fic idea where Goshiki would look out the window and find something staring back at him.
> 
> I also wanted to write about Japanese students' living quarters~

Tsutomu pushes the pieces of paper out over his desk, flinging the highlighter right after. Rubbing his hands over his tired eyes, his warm cheeks, and up to his stuffy feeling forehead, he messes up his hair and scratches where his scalp needs it most. Leaning against his linked hands, he keeps his eyes closed for a short while, not minding to note down this unplanned, short study break. He's been headstrong in this tight study schedule, and the fierce light of his desk lamp is burning through his lids, still torturing his retina. 

Behind him is his bed. In front of him the kitchen. Tsutomu gets up to fix his coffee maker and have it do a wonderful magic trick, when he's struck on the spot. His head moves fully to the right where his window is. He couldn't open it before, as the harsh wind would blow the window wide open, and all his reading materials would get strewn about. Staring out, he looks at the street lamp, located between two small trees. Their leaves go about in the wind, an unconnected dance. The light shines only half on each, while the rest of the leaves and the tree branches are hidden in the same black darkness as everything else here. 

Tsutomu doesn't know what caught his eye. Surely not the street light which is part of his daily view. 

Emptying the old used ground beans, and making a new pot of coffee, Tsutomu stretches his arms upwards and yawns. Good coffee takes time to brew, as it comes in quantity as well as quality. Tsutomu returns to his desk for a moment, when his feet stand still on the same spot as before. 

His head turns to the right, looking once again at the steadfast street lamp. The trees sway about, and two purplish red eyes looking back at him from the darkness behind the lamp.

His breathing stills. Tsutomu blinks his tired eyes, sure that he's imaging things. He's been up too late, studied too long. But the eyes remain glowing in the dark, behind the lamp and the trees. Tsutomu looks at his window, trying to find out if there's anything else unusual. The eyes flicker, and Tsutomu hears a growling sound very close by. It's not on the outside however. 

And then he turns his head around, finding himself facing a purplish red glow. It warms his skin. A vague silhouette which Tsutomu cannot concentrate on stands right next to him. A man, taller and wider in build. The glow fades until its just the eyes. The face looking down on Tsutomu is stern to a fault. Eyes beam, and the growling appears to come from his throat. 

_"Reality is a strange thing."_

 

 

 

Tsutomu wakes up in class. Blinking, he takes a sticky note from his cheek. In front, his professor drones on about classical poetry. Around Tsutomu, some of his classmates take notes, while others browse their phones. He finds one more sleeping student a few rows to the front and the right. Leaning his chin on his hand, Tsutomu summons the will to withhold a yawn, and wonders what he should eat for lunch. He hasn't been this bored for a long time, and he wondered what happened to him in university that drained all his will to learn and live. They say that the entrance exams suck all the life out of you, and afterwards you're allowed to live care-free. But Tsutomu misses the thrill, the exercise. 

At least he has volleyball to look forward to tonight, and karaoke afterwards.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

He goes through a mental check list. Tsutomu had gone downstairs, leaving his room behind on the second level. He;s gone down a couple of stairs, doing his wash. He took out the trash, too. 

Now he finds himself on fourth level of the student apartment building. In front of him are just other buildings, balconies, people with families, mothers who check their own laundry which they could hang outside. Tsutomu moves his toes in his sandals, his forehead damp with the evening warmth. Lingering in the unbearable summer heat. He should go back to his room, back to his air-conditioning. There's readings to do, relaxations after. Sleep.

But between two buildings, a narrow path creates moving shadows. 

What awaits him in his own room wasn't as frightening as this.

He breathes.

In. 

Out.

_Don't go out of existence, Tsutomu."_

In. 

_"I will join you, soon."_

 

 

Tsutomu blinks, his hand holding the highlighter hovering over a print-out. His forehead his cool, the air-conditioning humming overhead. 

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

The street lamps multiply. Tsutomu watches them blink into existence, outside his window. The electricity buzzes in his ear, and his toes tingle as the wavelengths strike his body. Multiplying, all the way to him, all around him. Homecoming.

A cold forehead presses against the back of his head, down to the nape of his neck. A nose sniffs up Tsutomu's scent. Does he even have one, one that may stand out? Tsutomu closes his eyes, exhaling a breath he has been holding a short moment. Arms, cold from the winds and wet from the rain, scurry over his chest, over his stomach. Tsutomu catches the wrists, and a myriad of images float through his mind. The rain outside lashes against his window. Ushijima spiking, Ushijima leading them to victory, Ushijima taking him to nationals, Ushijima being unstoppable, Ushijima leaving it all to him, Ushijima kissing him. Fragments of truth and wishful thinking intermixing as Tsutomu's head tilts to the side, his brows furrowing when cold lips push against the beginning of his spine. 

He wants to turn around and kiss, but an invisible force stops him, saying a firm 'No' right into his ear, which reddens at the sensitive touch.

"Ushijima-san..." 

_"You have to ask first."_ Through the deep growls, Tsutomu can hear words. He's aroused by both, and the sound-waves thrill his head to warmth and ecstasy. He has kept his body clean and untainted like a temple, but first he has to utter prayers to be heard. It takes him two attempts to make his tongue roll and speak.

"Please..." 

_"What do you want?"_

"Anything, everything." Tsutomu says, at once thankful and greedy. His back falls into Ushijima's chest, a trust-fall that doesn't end up in much falling any way Tsutomu's heart skips a beat nonetheless, his feet on slippery ground. Ushijima kisses his neck, takes in skin and bites. He makes a hungry, satisfied sound, and it rumbles through Tsutomu's bones like a deep bass.

Ushijima's hands, able to kill a person's determination and will, run under his shirt, down to Tsutomu's pants. They slip past the jogging pants waistband, and nails run along the hard edges of Tsutomu's hips, right down the dips. Tsutomu can feel Ushijima's arousal grinding against him through the layers of fabric, and he wants them all off.

"Want all of you." The growling fades into real words, followed by a tongue licking the ridge of Tsutomu's red hot ear. "Goshiki."

Tsutomu's eyes rolled back when the combined assault of hands and tongue took him to the edge. The biting took him over it.

 

 

The train thuds on; above ground and underground. Tsutomu doesn't watch the people pile in or out. He only notices the change of colour in his near vicinity. Ear-buds in, low tunes of piano keep him sane and at peace. Although his eyes are heavy, he won't let himself fall asleep again on the train. Although he wakes up at his desired station every time, he doesn't want to chance it.

Taking his phone out of his pocket, Tsutomu taps a few times with his thumb, until Ushijima's contact details flash over the screen. His finger hovers over the call button, as it had so many times before. His phone vanishes in the depths of his pockets, as it had too many times before. Tsutomu huffs at the lack of courage.

When his breath stains the window, it's not his own reflection he sees.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

The stairs creak under his bare feet. Tsutomu finishes walking down all the way. There's no light here. He can only hear his heartbeat thunder in his ears. Pressing his lips together, Tsutomu leans forward, peeking around a corner. It is as he has gone back in time, and he feels 10 years old again. In his parent's house, he lived upstairs too. And as a 10 year old, he would sneak around his parent's house and looking for sweets. 

That was before he discovered volleyball. And he isn't a kid anymore. His skin crawls with the need for so much other tastes than 'sweet'.

"Tsutomu, hey."

The voice is not inside his head. The eyes don't stare from within or behind a window. When Tsutomu's hand reaches out, he touches real skin and muscle. When Ushijima Wakatoshi's palm caresses his cheek, it feels warm. Inhaling, Tsutomu walks into him, embracing Ushijima. 

"Shhh, it's fine. I'm here."

 

Tsutomu looks down on his phone. He bites his bottom lip, staring at the text he send.

The one he has rewritten in his head, on paper, on a screen. A thousands time over. He's cut it in length, in love, in desperation. What's left should appear to be a cool, non-threatening question. A possibility. Tsutomu has hated himself for not doing this in his first year at Shiratorizawa. And ever since he's become a university student, his bravado failed him. Too many times too count.

It's sent now. It's out now. And for once, when Tsutomu looks into the reflection of his window, nothing strange appears.

Neither wishful thinking, or lovely illusions. Whatever happens in reality, Tsutomu wants to be mindful to experience it.

His phone beeps.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

A bunch of grey, black, and the odd miscalculated addition of colour sprinkles in and out of his view. A sea of people, none of which interest Wakatoshi. His legs hurt from waiting. People are never late, trains are never late, dates are supposed to be never late. Anxiety rises up his throat, one of the rarest, most unusual emotion. Wakatoshi keeps his head held high, and doesn't let his eyes wander too much. Cellphones ring, people laugh as they pass him by. 

Then there's movement to his right. Wakatoshi feels the presence, a set of curious eyes. When he looks at the corner, the corner looks back.

_"Ushijima-san?"_

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah what is this fic really?? I felt like going into different directions, make people question what's real, what's not, what's happening in general. If Goshiki is dreaming or he just created this every strong bond with Ushijima that surpasses time and space?
> 
> I wanted to go a lot deeper into it and also involve sexual themes and more plot but. Tbh I like it like this, strange and unexplained.


End file.
